Browns Keep Firing Long Passes, Lose Once Again

So, the biggest news of the week for pro football fans in Cleveland was that Kevin Hogan was named the starting quarterback, giving rookie DeShone Kizer time to watch and learn.

Surely, the way Hogan played in the second half last week, getting the ball to David Njoku, Seth DeValve, and Duke Johnson, would carry over to this week and we would see a more efficient offensive game.

And early on, it seemed to work. Heck, the Browns even picked up two first downs on their first drive, an improvement from the usual three and out.

The Browns even tied up the game at 3 in the first quarter after pinning Houston deep in their own territory after a punt and getting a good return from Jabrill Peppers.

After the Texans scored on a deep pass, the Browns were moving again, mostly using the ground game to get the football in the red zone.

After Hogan overthrew the ball on first down, his next pass was another overthrow picked off by Johnathon Joseph and run back 82 yards for a touchdown.

That seemed to be the end of the running and short passing game.

And Hue Jackson’s squad dropped to 0-6 on the season with a 33-17 loss, and are now 1-21 during his tenure as head coach.

After that interception, Cleveland ran the ball just twice the rest of the first half, and that turnover occurred with 11:08 left in the second quarter!

Cleveland trailed 24-3 at halftime, and was lucky it wasn’t worse. They got the ball back with slightly over three minutes to go in the half, and threw three passes, two of them deep throws, giving Houston the ball back with 2:33 left.

Luckily, the defense held.

Our point is if you are going to run that type of offense, there is really no reason not to play Kizer, he is more suited and has the bigger arm to throw the ball downfield.

As a result of this type of offense, the Browns were just three of 14 in third down conversions, a woeful 21.4%. That doesn’t help the defense of course.

Duke Johnson, a player one of the Browns’ own coaches said is a threat every time he touches the ball, had five carries and caught three passes.

The two tight ends, Njoku and DeValve? Both caught two passes.

Meanwhile, Jackson has his quarterbacks heaving 20-25 yard patterns on a week to week basis.

Thank goodness for Myles Garrett, who had another sack today, his third in two games, and had five tackles total.

We liked Deshaun Watson coming out of Clemson, but he didn’t do anything today that knocked our socks off. He is just in a better system and has some playmakers surrounding him.

Texans’ coach Bill O’Brien didn’t ask his rookie to make a lot of throws outside the numbers, the way Jackson does with his passers. Watson makes a lot of short tosses in the middle of the field.

Which is what we would like to see the Browns do with Kizer.

The one positive we can think of is Zane Gonzalez made a field goal today, a 41-yarder. He needed that.

Another telling sign on the Browns coaching was 11 penalties. Granted Cleveland has the youngest roster in the NFL, but the yellow flags are a constant issue. Doesn’t that reflect on the staff?

We all know the definition of insanity. Yet, Jackson doesn’t seem to want to do anything differently on offense. He continues to chuck long throws to a mediocre wide receiver crew.

Name another team in watching other games that throws deep ball this often.

Bringing up the insanity thing again…maybe the fans fall in the same category.

Really, Kizer Was The Only Choice

DeShone Kizer was named the Browns’ starting quarterback for the season opener against Pittsburgh by coach Hue Jackson, and it really wasn’t up for debate.

The rookie from Notre Dame hit just 6 of 18 passes for 93 yards and an interception, but he was hurt by some dropped passes and a fumble inside the Tampa Bay 20 yard line by Duke Johnson.

Otherwise, he would have put more points on the board and his statistics would’ve looked better.

When it comes down to it, Jackson didn’t have much of a choice.

Training camp started with Cody Kessler as the starter, but the second year man out of USC seems to refuse to do what the coaching staff wants, which is throw the ball downfield occasionally.

He has completed 66.7% of his 27 passes, but only for 145 yards. His 5.4 yards isn’t what Jackson wants out of his QB. Remember, Kessler was benched at halftime in a game the Browns were leading a year ago, because he checked down way too much.

Next, Osweiler had the starting job, but he didn’t put up any points in his time on the field, and if you think 5.4 yards per pass is poor, the former Bronco and Texan signal caller’s three yards per pass makes Kessler look like John Elway.

We truly believe that Jackson didn’t want to start his rookie second round pick in the opener, particularly because it is against the Steelers, but given the performance of the two guys he tried to give the gig to, he didn’t really have a choice.

Kizer is hitting just 51% of his throws, a low total in today’s NFL, but his average yards per pass attempt is 7.2, the best of the four passers on the roster.

One thing you have to remember is the team knows who is the quarterback best equipped to lead them, and if Jackson were to start someone else, he loses credibility in his own locker room.

Our hope is that Jackson doesn’t put the burden of the offense on Kizer. If the Browns are going into games planning to throw the ball 35 times, we can sense a disaster.

Rather, do what the Seahawks did with Russell Wilson as a rookie, do what the Steelers did with Ben Roethlisberger as a first year player. Ease the weight on their shoulders.

Run the ball, play defense, and make it as easy as possible for them to play the most difficult position in professional sports.

As for who backs up Kizer, that’s another quandary for Jackson.

We expect to see a lot of Kevin Hogan on Thursday night against Chicago, because amazingly, he has performed better than both Osweiler and Kessler in the preseason games.

We are sure the coaching staff would like to see him against some second team players instead of guys who will not make teams once the rosters have to be cut to 53 players.

We firmly believe Jackson’s intention was to bring DeShone Kizer along slowly, but the mediocre performance of the more experienced passers forced his hand.

Hopefully, Kizer joins the rookie quarterback success stories rather than the players who were thrown to the wolves early and got devoured.

Another Week, More Big Plays Killed The Browns

When the NFL season began this year, we talked about not judging the Cleveland Browns based on wins and losses, but rather, on the progress being shown weekly by the team.

One thing Hue Jackson’s crew is not improving on is giving up the big play on defense. Three of Cincinnati’s four touchdowns today came via this method in a 31-17 loss in the Queen City to drop Cleveland to 0-7 on the season.

Last week, Tennessee had four plays of forty yards or more, today the Bengals scored on plays of 44, 48, and 74 yards. If the Browns want to get in the win column at some point this season, Ray Horton’s defense has to prevent big plays.

To be fair, without Joe Haden out there (groin injury), there aren’t any solid experienced plays on that side of the ball. We can’t believe there is no one better than Tramon Williams on the waiver wire.

At least on offense, Jackson has Joe Thomas, John Greco, and Gary Barnidge on the field to help the youngsters.

And yes, we know we said we go young after last season.

So, here are the positives, negatives, and officiating gaffes from this week’s game.

Positives. The Browns have had problems the last two weeks running the ball, but they accumulated 180 yards on the ground today, led by an unlikely source.

Jackson must have found something in the Cincy defensive scheme showing they were susceptible to the read option, because the Browns unleashed reserve QB Kevin Hogan with it, and he ran for 104 yards on seven attempts, including a 28-yard touchdown run.

Isaiah Crowell also had a solid day with 63 yards on 12 carries.

Barnidge had a solid day as the outlet receiver, making 6 catches for 66 yards.

Before he left with a concussion, Cody Kessler played like we’ve come to expect him to play, hitting 9 of 11 throws for 82 yards.

On defense, Emmanuel Ogbah had his best game as a pro, recording two sacks. Christian Kirksey and Carl Nassib combined for a third sack of Andy Dalton.

The Browns were also penalized just five times today.

Negatives. Giving up 559 yards in an NFL game may be the biggest negative you can come up with. The defense gave up big play after big play.

Ibraheim Campbell took a horrific angle on Jeremy Hill’s 74 yard TD run, turning an 8 or 9 yard game into a touchdown.

And those two aren’t even the worst of it.

With 0:05 left on the clock in the first half, the Browns trailed 14-10 and were poised to get the second half kickoff.

That’s when Dalton hit A.J. Green for a 48 yard “Hail Mary” pass and suddenly the Browns were down 11.

There had to be five or six Browns around Green, yet no one could knock the pass down. Green tipped it to himself for the score.

Officiating. Ed Hochuli’s crew appeared to miss an offsides by Cincinnati with the play clock running down, calling a delay of game instead, when it appeared the Bengal defender was in the neutral zone when the play clock hit zero.

They also missed what appeared to be a helmet to helmet hit on Kessler on the play he suffered a concussion.

At least the schedule starts to see some home games for Jackson and his team, and it starts next week with a contest with the Jets, which should be a game the Browns can win.

But who will be the quarterback? Can Kessler recover enough to play next week? Or will it be Hogan in his first NFL start? Or will veteran Josh McCown go back out there?

It’s always a QB question in Cleveland.